'Thank you for coming down here so quickly,' said Stephen.

'I owed you a favour,' said Linda. 'I have colleagues holding down the fort. I'm sure they can manage a few hours without me.'

'I hope so.'

'Stephen, I have to ask, what is she?'

'She's an alien,' said Stephen. It wasn't true exactly, but it was easier than explaining the long winded truth.

The two of them were in Stephen's bedroom standing over Stephen's bed where Clea was lying unconscious. Her leotard was gone exposing her underwear, and more importantly, the various cuts and bruises over her body.

'And how did you say this happened?' asked Linda.

'In a battle with Dormammu,' said Stephen. 'She is like me - she is a Sorcerer Supreme. I'd been having weird feelings all day, I could sense trouble - I could feel the magic being hurt. I just didn't know where it was coming from. I could sense no threat here in Manhattan. I went to other magical sites.' He shook his head. 'Nothing. I sent Wong out. Wong couldn't find anything either. Then I found Clea half dead in my library. I assume she came to me for help - Sorcerer Supreme to Sorcerer Supreme.'

Bats appeared at Stephen's side. 'Excuse me? You found her in the library?'

Stephen sighed. 'I'm sorry. Bats found Clea in the library. Linda, this is Bats. Bats, this is Linda, she's a… a very old friend of mine.' He wasn't about to tell the dog the truth. Not in this moment. Not with Clea the way she was. The truth could wait for another time.

Linda looked down at the ghostly basset hound. 'Um. I'm not even going to question this, Stephen. I've seen way weirder things around you.'

'Do you think Clea will be alright?' asked Stephen.

Linda shook her head. 'I don't know, Stephen. I, uh, I've never seen her physiology before. I'd always assumed Clea was, well, human. White hair, pink irises - I assumed she was a mutant, you know, like Scarlet Witch or Magik. But she clearly isn't. Mutant or not, humans don't tend to bleed luminescent sparkling pink blood.'

Stephen shook his head. 'No.'

'So what exactly is she?' asked Linda. 'I can't help her if you don't tell me how.'

'She's-she's from the Dark Dimension.'

'Yes, I know.'

'She's half Faltine.'

'What uh… what's a Faltine?'

''It's what Dormammu is. They're… related.'

Linda stopped and looked at Stephen. Then looked back down at Clea. 'Who? Clea and… well shit. And the rest of her?'

'Human, I think? Her grandfather was a Mhuruuk - a Dark Dimension sorcerer.'

'So she is half human. Alright.' Linda nodded. 'Alright, okay. I can do this.'

'And she's thousands of years old,' Stephen added.

Linda glared at Stephen.

Stephen raised his hand and backed away.

Linda leaned over Clea and began examining her wounds. 'Okay. So far, most of the lacerations seem pretty superficial. I don't know whether it's her specific Faltine physiology or what, but I don't think they'll need sutures or anything.' She came to a particularly deep cut winding itself across Clea's arm. 'That one will though,' she said. 'And this one too, on her hand - wait, I think there's a fracture.'

'Clea's hand's broken?' asked Stephen.

'Yeah.' Linda nodded. 'You know I've treated people with healing factors. Does Clea have a healing factor?'

'I… I don't know,' Stephen admitted. He'd never before seen her so badly injured. He didn't think it was possible until she showed up in his library like this. He couldn't think of a time she'd even bled before. She must have though. If Stephen bled and was injured in his duties as Sorcerer Supreme, then surely all other Sorcerers Supreme - Clea included - also bled and were injured. Right? Yeah. That's why Clea was lying on his bed - injured in the line of Sorcerer Supreme duty.

'Okay,' Linda shook her head. 'This is the point I'd recommend casting. But if she's gonna be healed before next week then I don't see a point.'

'You want to splint it,' said Stephen.

Linda nodded. 'Yeah. Just to keep it steady. I don't - I can't say for sure if the bone is displaced or not. But I'll splint the wrist just to be on the safe side.'

'Thank you for doing this, Linda,' said Stephen.

'I had no choice,' said Linda. 'I'm a doctor. I care for the wounded.' She looked up at Stephen. 'You of all people should understand.'

Stephen said nothing. There wasn't anything he could say.

'I'm going to suture the lacerations,' said Linda. 'And hope she regains consciousness soon.'

'What do you make of her blood loss?' asked Stephen.

'Well, I don't think she needs a transfusion. And even if she did, I don't know of any other with her type blood.'

'She's the only one of her kind.'

'Oh. Great,' said Linda, sarcastically. 'Very helpful, Stephen. You could've told me this at the beginning.'

'I'll just…' He pointed at the door. 'Come on, Bats.'

'No way. I want to see this,' said Bats.

'Bats. Walkies,' said Stephen.

'Ooh. Walkies.' Bats' ghost tail began to wag furiously. 'I can't turn that down now, can I?'

'Good boy.' Stephen opened the door and walked through. Bats followed.

On the other side of the door stood Wong and Zelma.

'How is Clea?' asked Wong.

'The Night Nurse doesn't think Clea has been too badly injured,' said Stephen. 'So that's a good thing. Once her physical injuries have been tended to, I can try and heal her magical ones.'

'She has magical injuries?' asked Zelma. 'I didn't think you could have magical injuries.'

'You have suffered supernatural injuries, Zelma,' said Stephen. 'Magical injuries work very much the same way. They do not injure a magician physically, but inhibit their abilities to perform magic. And Clea… she is… her mother is a very powerful entity made of pure magic. Magical injuries like the ones I've seen in Clea, can be enough to kill a Faltine. Luckily for Clea, she is half human.'

'So… what?'

'I think that's why Dormammu injured her physically - in an attempt to kill her physical body. But how would he know to injure her magically? And where?' Stephen asked with a frown. Something just wasn't adding up. 'If you'll excuse me, I'm off to clear my head, and to walk Bats.'

Walking the streets of New York City with his ghost dog next to him, Stephen could not wipe the look of concern off his face.

What did Clea mean by "our child"? Surely…? Surely she didn't mean that she and Stephen had a child together. They'd been married since the 80s, sure. Known each other sine the 60s. Together since the 70s. Except the time she left to run a rebellion in the Dark Dimension because she thought he was in love with Morganna. Then there was the cheating. Neither side was innocent. And then there were the other rebellions against Dormammu. And the past few years of estrangement. When could there have been time for Clea to have a child? His child?

'Maybe she didn't mean that you guys had a literal child together,' Bats suggested, seemingly reading Stephen's thoughts. Stephen, in reality, had told the former pooch what was vexing him. 'Maybe she meant that Dormammu is after a child and you have to save it. Or-or that when she was in the Dark Dimension, she adopted a kid in trouble with Dormammu and that kid is technically yours because you and Clea never really got divorced, did you?'

'I don't know, Bats,' said Stephen. 'If it is my kid, I can understand… Clea and I, we're Sorcerers Supreme. We… what we do is dirty work. Very dirty. Most days I love my job, I love what I do. But there's still a chance I could be killed fighting Dormammu, or Nightmare, Satannish, Shuma Gorath. Then on top of that, I have Avengers duty. That means I could get killed by Thanos, or Ultron… why, I could wake up in the morning and be digesting in Fin Fang Foom's stomach.'

'Grisly,' was all Bats could say to that.

'You've seen it yourself, Bats. You saw what went wrong when I raised Vegas.'

'I've seen a lot of things go wrong for you, Doc.'

'And right now, it's night. I could be shot and killed by a mugger on these streets right now.'

'That would not be great.'

Stephen sighed. 'And Clea. She's led rebellion after rebellion against her own family. Against her own… well, I don't want to say blood because the Faltine don't really bleed. But I'm sure you get the gist of what I'm saying.'

'Sure,' said Bats. 'Course I do. You think you and Clea, because of the perils your jobs both bring - occupational hazards so to speak - aren't really fit to be playing happy families with a kid. That any kid of yours would be safer off anywhere other than with either of you.'

Stephen looked down at the ghost dog. 'Yeah.'

The two walked side by side in silence, only the sounds of Greenwich Village surrounding them.

'But if I do have a kid,' Stephen spoke up after a few minutes. 'I just wish I'd have been told it existed. I wish I'd known I was a father, even if I wasn't right for the role. That's what I can't understand.'

'Life ain't fair, is it, Doc?' said Bats.

Stephen shook his head. 'No. No it isn't.'

'On the bright side, at least Clea isn't gonna die.'

'No.'

Stephen and Bats got back to the Sanctum after a long while, and were greeted by Wong.

'Has Clea woken up yet?' asked Stephen.

Wong shook his head. 'I'm afraid not.'

'Okay.'

'Linda and Zelma are still with her.'

Stephen simply nodded.

'You know, I'm just as surprised as you are by the events of this evening.'

'You're doing a poor job showing it.'

'Believe me, Stephen, when I eventually process it my emotions will come out.'

'I'll hold you to that, old friend.'

Stephen headed off to his bedroom, where Clea was. And then he entered.

His bedroom was just like every other ordinary bedroom. There were a few magical artefacts, sure. But they looked more like cheesy goth decor than magical artefacts. His bedroom was bright - blue wallpaper, a few pot plants. A record player, a tape deck, a CD player, an iPod docking station. A TV. A PS4. A Nintendo Switch. Shelves of records, CDs, DVDs, video games. Clothes strewn about the floor in piles of dirty laundry - socks in particular.

It did not look like the bedroom of a Sorcerer Supreme. It did, however, look like the bedroom of a teenage boy.

'Wong told me there had been no change in Clea's condition.'

'I've sutured the worst of her lacerations,' said Linda. 'Between the one on her arm, her hand, her cheek, and her eyebrow, there was over a hundred in total. And I've put a splint on her right hand.' She pointed to the bandage on Clea's arm, holding the splint in place.

'Blessed Vishanti,' Stephen muttered.

'I don't know why she's still unconscious, Stephen. It could be that she's exhausted from fighting Dormammu. Or she could have suffered a very serious head injury.'

'I think I know what it is.'

'Oh?'

'Magical wounds,' said Stephen. 'Her magical wounds are still open.' He put his hands to the Eye of Agamotto. With the help of the all-seeing Eye of Agamotto, he was able to clearly see where Clea was losing her magical energy.

He sat down, cross-legged, on a pile of dirty socks. He didn't care about the smell. And it was bad.

'What are you doing, Stephen?' asked Zelma.

'I'm fixing Clea's magical injuries.'

'Can't you just, I dunno, say a spell or something?'

Stephen shook his head. 'I'm afraid it doesn't work that way, Zelma.'

Stephen relaxed on his dirty socks. He was going into his astral from to fix Clea's magical wounds. He could see them. He knew where they were. His hands were steady in his astral form. Now he just had to do it.

Okay. I changed Clea just a little bit. Sometimes her eyes are pink, sometimes they're blue, often in the same issue. I'm guessing they're pink when she does her magic, but here they're just kinda… pink all the time. It wouldn't be hard to see her eyes and her white hair and assume her age and that she's a mutant. We've also never really seen her bleeding, so here she has glowing pink blood.